


all is bright

by lettertotheworld



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, festive angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 03:59:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17036225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettertotheworld/pseuds/lettertotheworld
Summary: The issue is this: Misty does not ever remember Christmas being so romantic.or, a story about healing during the most wonderful time of the year





	all is bright

**Author's Note:**

> the most highly anticipated fight of the year: misty vs. the holiday season. merry christmas here's 8k words of pain and porn.

Misty tends to be a generally unbothered person. She never really finds herself feeling anxious, but as of late, she is gravely unsettled by one thing, and that is time. It’s a treasure. A thing of value that she was not granted in hell. Minutes and hours and days all blurred into one, infinite purgatory until nothing was real. She knows she spent a little over a year there, but it makes her skin crawl when she thinks about it. It had felt like much more, and she can’t seem to make it all match up in her head. So, yeah, that’s more than a little unnerving.

 

But things are real here, Misty thinks, in the land of the living. The mortal plane. Things change and move and grow. And she remains very aware of the gift that is time.

 

She has spent days nights turned days again with eyes wide open, unwavering, because her sleep is either haunted or nonexistent. She has struggled with all the kinks in her magic—magic that has felt corrupted in some way since her return. Overused and abused and not quite her own anymore. She is relearning herself. She is trying. She does not push.

 

But apparently that’s not good enough for the powers that be. Apparently, she is supposed to release her white-knuckled grip on this reality and let this whole…thingjust come out of the woodwork.

 

Because the one area she has taken _particular_ care with is her relationship with Cordelia. She’s patient and kind and supportive of Misty always. Cordelia will find her in the greenhouse late at night and keep her company into the stark hours of morning. When she can’t fight sleep for another second, she drifts off with her head pillowed in her arms on the table. And Misty watches her sleep, envies it. And Misty blankets her in her shawl to stave off the cold. And Misty dreams, unblinking, searching for peace and answers to unspoken questions in the soft lines of Cordelia’s features.

 

(She dreams about a day when they can have what she has always wanted for them.)

 

The issue is this: Misty does not ever remember Christmas being so romantic. In truth, she has hardly celebrated in the past. Has mostly only quietly participated at best. But now she feels ready to bow under the weight of this season. It seems that every time she turns around, Cordelia is donning a new sweater that flatters the very shape of her. Today, it was soft and white with black accents around the neckline. Last Thursday, Misty avoided her altogether because her sweater was an extravagant dark mauve with three tortoiseshell buttons down the torso, and Misty couldn’t so much as look at her without wanting to pop them all with her teeth.

 

But this holiday season, there is so much joy in the air, so much magic, so much excitement, and she can feel all of it. Overwhelming. Intimate. It makes her heart swell, and she fears it will sink in surrender.

 

_It’s too much_ , it will whimper. _She was too much for me even before, and now I can’t take it_.

 

Just yesterday, Cordelia brought her a mug of chai tea with eggnog, also nursing one of her own. When Cordelia took a sip, she managed to get a thin, milky streak on her upper lip, and Misty actually considered leaning over and licking it off.

 

Basically, if she sees one more mistletoe hanging around this place, she’s going to go completely postal.

 

Basically, she is falling in love.

 

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to distract herself, and it’s not that she’s fighting it. It’s just that she’s not sure anymore. Cordelia is perpetually busy, and Misty is supposed to be on a grand journey of self-rediscovery. But there are hollowed spaces in her that she thinks Cordelia could fill nicely, spaces that she doesn’t have the threshold to fulfill on her own, which is _wrong_ , probably. She’s meant to do this alone, meant to piece herself back together and say, “Look at me, everybody! I fixed myself, I’m whole again!”

 

That will never happen. Or, perhaps that will happen in several years’ time, when the magic coursing through her bloodstream stops feeling like a foreign presence. When she can bring a living creature back to life without having an utter meltdown.

 

She’s starting with plants and working her way up. Today, it is a pine tree sapling wrapped in burlap that she found buried in the depths of the greenhouse. Misty is going to give the coven a Christmas tree.

 

The withered twig is sticking up from the soil-filled sack that sets on the hardwood floor in front of her. She has her legs crisscrossed, and her head in her hands. Misty stares at the dingy, brown bristles for a long time. She tries to relate to it. She asks herself what she would want if she were wilted and begging for revival.

 

(It’s not a hard question; she is both of those things now, and to be understood is probably the answer.)

 

Misty reaches a hand out for the dried needles, runs them between her thumb and her forefinger. There is still life here, she thinks, and its breaths are labored and numbered, but it’s here. She can smell it, hear it if she listens closely enough. It can be saved. Maybe it is just like her.

 

She yearns to silence its cries.

 

_It’s in pain_ , she thinks determinedly. _You can help it_.

 

Misty closes her eyes and opens her heart. She inhales a deep breath and lets her magic flow cautiously, so as not to overwhelm herself or the tree. It is a low, spinning kinetic energy that rises from her bones to the layers of her skin, and her fingertips tingle. Intention is everything, she remembers. She has to want it, and she has to feel it. She can do this. She can—

 

The flames that burst outward nearly graze her palm, and she jumps back, her hands dropping to the floor to catch herself from falling over.

 

“Damn,” she mutters, curling her hand into a fist and pounding it against the hardwood beneath her furiously, “ _damn_.”

 

Misty scrambles to her feet, watches the fire that she started scorch the branches, snuffing out the remaining life. The sapling is ruined. It’s ruined, and she killed it. It’s her fault. She killed something innocent. Something that needed saving.

 

“Misty?”

 

She puffs out an irritated breath of laughter as she glances to the ceiling, willing the tears from her eyes. Of course Cordelia would find her like this, broken and failing.

 

She hears the fire sizzle, then cease completely as Cordelia waves a hand in its direction, rushing further into the room, closer to Misty, eyes wide and manic with concern.

 

“Are you okay?” Cordelia quickly takes Misty’s wrists, inspecting her hands for burns, but there is only ash. She yanks them away from Cordelia, brushing them off on the skirt of her dress. “What happened?”

 

_I’m corrupted, that’s what happened_ , she wants to snap. _My magic doesn’t belong to me anymore_.

 

“I’m fine,” she says instead, her face burning—as hotly as the fire had—with embarrassment.

 

“Hey. Misty,” Cordelia tries gently, using her fingers to tilt Misty’s chin upward, meeting her gaze, which Misty returns reluctantly. “Talk to me.”

 

Cordelia never eyes her with pity. It is always a warm, careful sympathy. It’s unique. A kind of honest understanding that only Cordelia possesses. She never makes Misty feel small or unwelcome or ashamed. But Misty is so completely angry with herself, so disappointed, that she doesn’t want that right now. She doesn’t want to be comforted, unraveled like yarn beneath Cordelia’s burning stare. She wants to be alone and she wants to sob and she wants to shout until her lungs ache.

 

She turns away from Cordelia’s hold, and Cordelia watches her with sadness etched on her face.

 

“I’m fine,” she says again, insisting, and maybe if she says it enough, she can start to believe it.

 

Misty grabs up the burlap into her arms, charred remains of the pine tree shooting out of it in splintered pieces, and she retreats to her room, slamming the door behind her with the heel of her boot. She sets the sapling down beside her bed, then collapses onto her mattress with a sigh, expects to feel tears starting to leak from the corners of her eyes, and somehow feels worse, emptier, when they don’t make an appearance. She is lost, and she is tired, and the smell of wood smoke from the fireplace in the corner is making her nauseous.

 

Why can’t she do this? Did hell really strip away that much from her? Resurgence. That’s the only thing she had to offer here. Who is she without that? She doesn’t belong here. She _doesn’t_. She’s not even a witch anymore; just a shell of one, cracked like porcelain and worn to the bone.

 

She is doing more harm than good. The coven is supposed to protect people, help them, and she hasn’t been able to heal anything since she’s been back. A stranger in her own body, a ghost.

 

Her muscles strain and tense, and her eyes sting from being forcibly open for several days on end, her whole body shutting down from exhaustion. She doesn’t want to sleep right now, but logically, it doesn’t feel like her brain is giving her a choice. It doesn’t really feel like she gets much of a choice regarding anything these days.

 

_I should just leave_ , she thinks, her eyelids fluttering closed. She slides up closer to her pillow and releases a shuddering breath. _Back to the swamp. Alone. Where I can’t hurt anyone_.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a dark, dreamless slumber that feels less like sleep and more like some strange, void indifference. Something she physically needed, so it happened, because she’s gotten three hours of sleep in the past week, and those hours have been filled with nightmares and cold sweats and fetal positions.

 

The solid door to her bedroom creaking open is what wakes her. She squints at the light that filters into the pitch-black room from the hallway. Has she been asleep long enough that it has gotten dark?

 

“Wake up, girl,” Queenie tells her, pulling the chain on her bedside lamp, illuminating the room in soft lamplight.

 

“What time is it?” she asks blearily.

 

Queenie shrugs.

 

“I don’t know, nine, nine-thirty. Cordelia won’t shut up about you. She’s worried. She told me to come check on you.”

 

Misty feels a wave of guilt wash over her. She rubs at her eyes with the backs of her hands and sits up, legs swinging off the side of the bed.

 

“Why is she worried?” she asks, because the absolute last thing she wants is for Cordelia to worry over _her_.

 

Queenie blinks once at her.

 

“My guess? Probably because you almost caught the house on fire.” Queenie glances down at the sapling at the foot of her bed, lifts her chin up at it in an inquisitive nod. “Is that supposed to be our Christmas tree?”

 

Misty flushes, wraps her shawl tighter around herself.

 

“It _was_ ,” she says bitingly. “Then I killed it.”

 

“Well, can’t you just fix it? You’re good at that shit.”

 

Misty shakes her head, feels dread in the pit of her stomach. No one else knows of her struggles, the war she is waging with herself, because this is her pain. It belongs to her, it is her burden, so she will nurture it without the help of others.

 

“I can’t—I’m not even gonna touch it again. It’ll… _explode_ or something.”

 

Queenie shuffles her feet awkwardly as Misty continues to stare at the crisp, darkened pine tree. It had so much potential. Misty was going to heal it so it not only survived but _prospered_. She wanted it to thrive, to grow beyond its measly 36 inches and reach the standard seven-foot height of a beautiful Christmas tree. Something full with flexible limbs that the girls could decorate and put their presents under.

 

“Sorry,” she tells Misty lamely, “about the tree.”

 

Misty lifts her shoulders.

 

“Sorry Cordelia won’t shut up about me.”

 

Queenie chuckles under her breath.

 

“Yeah, she’s got it bad for you.”

 

Misty hums, whether in contemplation or disagreement she doesn’t know. But it makes her heart skip to think Cordelia could ever share her feelings. There’s a doorway to that conversation, three suitcases worth of shit to unpack there, and maybe they will settle down and do that someday. Or maybe they won’t, because Queenie is just making a joke, and Cordelia is just a naturally kind person, equally concerned for the wellbeing of everyone in the coven.

 

For now, she will focus on calming Cordelia’s nerves. For now, she will show Cordelia that she is okay. Yes, maybe she is struggling, but Cordelia shouldn’t be consumed with worry for her sake. Not on top of everything else. It doesn’t matter anyway; Misty won’t be hanging around here much longer. She’ll probably be back at her shack soon, and then no one will have to worry. No one will have to babysit her.

 

Misty takes each step down the stairs slowly, lifting her arms, her hands sliding along the banisters on either side of her. She hums along to the soft Christmas carols that float on distantly, then at slightly higher volume when she reaches the bottom of the staircase. The music is coming from the kitchen, she realizes as she makes her way around the corner. Something else worth realizing is that Cordelia has changed sweaters. This one is a soft, ember green, cashmere and V-neck. Misty tries not to stare at the exposed skin of Cordelia’s collarbones, or at the bit of cleavage that shows when she bends down to look in the oven.

 

“Need some help?” Misty asks, forcing herself to speak, because otherwise, she will just keep staring like an idiot.

 

When Cordelia straightens, she smiles at Misty.

 

_She’s wearing lipstick_ , Misty thinks, nerves suddenly in a swirling frenzy, the light pink tint drawing her attention to Cordelia’s mouth. _Why?_

“No, the last batch is almost done,” Cordelia assures her, pulling out a seat at the island bar. “Here, sit. I have something for you.”

 

In the back of her mind, Misty hopes it’s that she gets to kiss the lipstick off Cordelia’s mouth. In the back of her mind, she hopes that Cordelia will move closer, straddle her lap and say, “it’s me, I’m the something.” Her tongue pokes out to wet her own lips at the thought.

 

“It’s not even Christmas yet,” she says, still mildly distracted.

 

Cordelia walks over to one of the baking sheets cluttering the counter space and brings a heavily frosted cookie back over to Misty.

 

“Some of the younger girls wanted to decorate Christmas cookies. I did this one.”

 

Oh.

 

Cordelia made her a cookie, and it’s in the shape of a mistletoe, a feat by which Cordelia has either used her magic or a cookie cutter in order to get it just right. There are four, red dots of icing in the middle where the frosted green leaves meet, and _oh_.

 

_A mistletoe, unmistakably_ , Misty thinks.

 

Hm. Strange, seeing as how it’s Christmas time, and the implications should be strikingly obvious. Strange, seeing as how Cordelia is being very transparent about all of this. But Misty is overanalyzing.

 

“It’s almost too pretty to eat,” she tells Cordelia, then takes a bite anyway.

 

Cordelia watches her, unspeaking, eyes trained on her as Misty chews slowly.

 

“Wait,” Cordelia says, “you’ve got icing on your mouth.”

 

And before Misty can reach for a napkin, Cordelia is leaning forward. She gently swipes her ring finger over the corner of Misty’s lip, and when it comes back frosting-tipped, Cordelia brings her finger up to her own mouth. Just sucks the icing off her finger like it’s supposed to be the least provocative thing Misty’s ever seen, and Cordelia has not made any attempt to break eye contact.

 

Because now Misty knows what Cordelia’s lips look like when they are wrapped around a finger. Because Cordelia wants her to suffer, Misty decides. The only explanation.

 

Misty forgets to breathe, warmth twisting low in her stomach, her pulse now racing as a blush spreads up from her neck to her face to the tips of her ears. She’s hot all over, her skin burning, her _lips_ burning where Cordelia had _touched_ her, and _why_ —

 

She tries to swallow down her mouthful of cookie, but chokes on air, and coughs awkwardly, face turning red for more than one reason.

 

“There’s a Christmas parade downtown tonight,” Cordelia says, pushing off the counter top to check on the remaining cookies in the oven as if _nothing just happened_.

 

“…What?” Misty says stupidly, the tingle of a cough still straining at her throat.

 

“I thought you and I could go,” Cordelia offers over her shoulder, a hopeful spark in her eyes, “if you want to.”

 

Misty nods her head, lifts her shawl back up around her shoulders from where it had fallen to her elbows.

 

“Yeah,” she says quietly, lightly clearing her throat when the word comes out as a croak, “sounds fun.”

 

(Watching paint dry sounds fun if Cordelia is there, if it meant she got to spend time with her. Still, Misty hopes a Christmas parade will be just a little better than that.)

 

 

 

 

 

The streets and sidewalks are bustling with floats and carolers. Some people are dressed as elves, some are sporting headbands shaped like reindeer antlers, and others are decked in gaudy, hideous Christmas sweaters.

 

Christmas lights should be illegal, Misty thinks. Outlawed because Cordelia looks too beautiful under them, and it’s unfair. She is walking slowly, aimlessly, with her arm looped around Cordelia’s, elbows locked.

 

“If you weren’t okay,” Cordelia starts, their shoulders bumping together as they stroll through the throng of people, “if there was something bothering you, would you talk to me?”

 

Misty sighs out a breath of laughter.

 

“Maybe. I don’t know. Who says I’m not okay?”

 

Cordelia slows to a stop, and Misty does the same, turning to face her. She’s never felt more vulnerable in her life, in a crowd of people, surrounded by loud Christmas music and flashes of red and green and gold.

 

“I know you.” Cordelia reaches out a hand, places it against Misty’s cheek, and Misty leans into the contact. “I know you’re not okay. You can trust me, with anything. I’m here. I think you forget that sometimes.”

 

_I never forget that_ , Misty thinks. _It’s all I ever think about_.

 

She looks at Cordelia, and the tip of her nose is tinged red from the chill in the air. Misty lifts a hand, wraps it around the one Cordelia has pressed against her face.

 

“I’ve been thinking about leaving,” she tells her, the words dropping from her mouth like a ton of bricks, and she hadn’t meant to just say it, but Cordelia is asking her for honesty, and Misty feels the need to give that to her always.

 

“What?” Cordelia’s face contorts with hurt, like Misty has broken her heart right here in the middle of Canal Street. Cordelia drops her hand. “Why? What are you—where are you going?”

 

“Back home,” she says, and the word stings her tongue like a betrayal as soon as she says it. Cordelia’s eyes water, and Misty watches as Cordelia presses her lips together to keep them from trembling.

 

“Home,” Cordelia echoes, and Misty bristles slightly at the condescending tone. “So, not Robichaux’s.”

 

“I don’t belong there. I used to believe I could heal anything, but,” she shakes her head, thinks, _but now I can’t even heal myself,_ and her voice wobbles when she says, “everything’s different now. Everything’s…new. In all the worst ways.”

 

“I don’t understand.” Cordelia crosses her arms, shivers against the chill of the wind. “Is this about the tree?”

 

Misty frowns.

 

“It’s about everything.” She glances down at the sidewalk, scuffs the toe of her boot against the concrete. “The magic I had before is gone. That place took so much from me, and I don’t…I don’t know, I figured I should be on my own for a while, where no one has to worry about me. Let the darkness have its way.”

 

She feels tears prick at the rims of her eyes, and this conversation was _not_ supposed to happen this way, and it definitely wasn’t supposed to happen tonight, among all the festivities.

 

“Your magic can’t just disappear,” Cordelia tells her, and there is a specific determination in her voice. “I can feel you, I can feel your heart, Misty, you are _strong_ , and resilient, and the very best of us, and there’s not an ounce of darkness in you.”

 

And something about that rubs her the wrong way. Cordelia using her powers to reach into Misty’s soul and assure Misty that there shouldn’t be anything wrong with her, when there _is_. There very clearly is, because Misty can feel it. She knows it’s there. Cordelia has no idea. Cordelia only wants to see the good.

 

“Why do you have to believe in everyone so much?” she asks, all the anger she’s bottled up towards herself suddenly pushing its way to the surface. “I’m not half the witch you think I am. I never was. Honestly, here lately, it’s been feeling like I should have stayed in hell.”

 

Cordelia’s face falls in defeat, and her expression is so deeply distraught that Misty feels ashamed to look at her, knowing she put that sadness in her eyes and the pinch between her brows.

 

“You think being in hell is better than being here?” Cordelia asks in a small voice.

 

Misty shrugs her shoulders, her hands flying up in a gesture of cluelessness.

 

“I don’t know!” she bursts, because she doesn’t _have_ these answers that Cordelia wants. She’s not capable of saying anything right now that’s going to put her at ease. “At least I knew who I was while I was there.”

 

“Okay,” Cordelia says resignedly. “Okay. Well, you’ll do what you think is best. And I certainly won’t hold you back any longer, so.” She dips her head and shoves her hands in the pockets of her coat. “Merry Christmas, Misty.”

 

She watches Cordelia maneuver through the parade crowd until she disappears in the mass, until she loses sight of her. Misty stands, frozen, as people celebrate and cheer around her, blissfully ignorant to all of this heartache.

 

 

 

 

 

Misty takes her time walking back to the academy. She doesn’t even want to go back, but she wants to be alone right now even less. Things had gone from one extreme to the other faster than she could even blink. She thought Cordelia would understand, and why hadn’t she? Cordelia is usually so wonderful about that. But maybe Misty crossed one too many lines tonight. Screwed up one too many times. Maybe she’s only been seeing one side of this.

 

The sidewalk pulls her in the direction of the house, and she trudges up the walkway. The strings of golden Christmas lights are illuminating the front of the academy, big, red, velvet bows draped across the railings of the balcony above. Silver garland wraps around the columns, and there’s loud, crooning music coming from inside. A Christmas party, if Misty puts two and two together. The one Zoe has been talking about and planning for a few weeks now.

 

Great. So everyone is still awake, then. When is anything ever easy?

 

She pushes the front door open, her eyes scanning the room for Cordelia, and it’s only everyone but. All the girls are talking loudly amongst themselves, scattered throughout the living area, some of them holding tumblers of sparkling cider.

 

Misty notices Zoe and Madison approaching her and wishes they wouldn’t. She doesn’t feel like talking or celebrating right now, but since they are already here, she thinks to take advantage of it.

 

“Have either of you seen Cordelia?” Misty asks.

 

“She’s in the greenhouse,” Zoe answers carefully. “Is everything okay?”

 

“What the fuck happened?” Madison asks, flicking the ash off the end of her cigarette and into the empty cup she’s holding. “She was bawling like a baby when she came in.” Zoe jabs an elbow into Madison’s side, and Madison glares. “ _What_? I just want to know what happened.” Madison turns back to Misty. “For the record, I thought a Christmas parade as a first date was a dumb idea, anyway.”

 

“Oh, my god, Madison,” Zoe sighs, dropping her head in her hands.

 

Misty blinks.

 

“What?” she asks, her stomach turning over on itself.

 

“Cordelia didn’t tell you?” Madison asks, snorting when Misty just eyes her blankly. “Jesus, you two are a fucking mess.”

 

Misty shakes her head, heart suddenly in her throat, a lump she can’t swallow past. Her mouth rushes to catch up with the speed of the neurons circuiting in her brain.

 

“I’m—what?”

 

“Madison loves ruining peoples’ lives,” Zoe says by way of explanation, and Misty is still painfully confused. “But the parade was my idea. I didn’t mean for it to cause any trouble between you two.”

 

“Yeah, and _I’m_ the one who ruins lives? Your idea fucking sucked.”

 

Misty hears them arguing, vaguely, but there is a white noise filling her ears, pulsing in her head. Her feet are carrying her away from them, away from the conversation, drowning out their voices, drowning out the music in the background. Cordelia is out in the greenhouse, alone, feeling like complete shit about herself, and it’s Misty’s fault. She has, possibly, _the_ misunderstanding of misunderstandings to fix, if that is even still an option.

 

Misty has been so obsessed with her own demons that she just continues to shoot Cordelia out of the sky entirely. Continues to shatter her.

 

She wonders how this all happened. Wonders how this situation has managed to slip through the cracks this horribly. How they got so lost along the way. Maybe there is no fixing this. Maybe she should accept that not everything in life can be healed. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to do this alone. Maybe she should have done a lot of things differently. But she’s never felt so disconnected before. She has never had to rebuild herself. She has never had to relearn her magic. It has always been a part of her, ingrained in her identity, something she has always just _known_ , and she is afraid without it. She is afraid of this whole new piece of herself that she doesn’t understand.

 

_It was stupid to try to run from it_ , she thinks, _to think I could just leave, and it would all go away. To think I shouldn’t just ask for help_.

 

The mild nip of the temperature hits her skin as soon as she steps outside, soaks through her clothes and to her bones as her mind races, as she treks through the grass. She hesitates, lingers outside the door of the greenhouse.

 

Her hand trembles as she raises it, thinks of knocking, but gently pushes her palm against the surface instead.

 

The door opens, and Cordelia is there, leaning over a potion, squeezing the end of a pipette into a flask. It emits a light smoke, thin wisps escaping from the top of the bottle, and Misty follows the fog up to Cordelia’s face. Misty’s chest clenches suddenly, her heart skipping, and she wants to walk over with all the confidence in the world and take Cordelia’s face in her hands. She wants to apologize, wants to ask for help, wants to beg for something, anything.

 

The heavy door shuts behind her with a creak and an echo, and she hadn’t been paying attention, had forgotten about everything else when she saw Cordelia. Cordelia starts, her head snapping up, gaze locking on Misty. The lyrics of _Do They Know It’s Christmas?_ drone on quietly as they watch each other.

 

(Cordelia never used to listen to music in the greenhouse. An impact that, Misty likes to think, she has had. She also likes to think that has not been her onlyimpact. Selfish. But she can’t seem to be anything else lately.)

 

“Hey,” Misty tries awkwardly.

 

Cordelia’s voice is soft and small when she speaks.

 

“Hi.”

 

The short distance between them feels like miles as Misty crosses it, the tips of her fingers flitting and tapping nervously across the tabletop before she holds her hands out to Cordelia.

 

“Wanna dance?”

 

Cordelia heaves out a sigh.

 

“Misty.”

 

“Please? I won’t ask for anything else. We don’t even have to talk. Just dance with me.”

 

_Let me make it up to you_ , she begs silently.

 

It takes Cordelia a moment to decide. A stiff, heavy pause. And then she’s slowly stepping forward, meeting Misty halfway and taking her hands. Misty raises her arm higher and spins Cordelia, an initial attempt at thawing some of the tension between them. It works. It works, and Cordelia grins, maybe reluctantly, and maybe warily, but it counts, Misty thinks.

 

She tugs Cordelia closer, and Cordelia melts into her embrace, her arms wrapping around Misty’s shoulders. She holds firm to Cordelia’s waist as they sway to the music, both of them pressed together with her face in Cordelia’s hair. The faint smell of her shampoo fills Misty’s senses, and she lets her eyes close peacefully.

 

“I’m really sorry,” Misty says, voice muffled, “for ruining your Christmas. And all your big plans.”

 

She feels Cordelia’s lips turn up into a smile against her neck.

 

“You said we didn’t have to talk.”

 

Misty snickers once, softly, and holds Cordelia tighter.

 

“Alright. We won’t, then.”

 

Cordelia’s breath fans out across her skin, and Misty can feel her chest expand against her own as she inhales, then deflate as she releases the breath. She rubs gentle circles over Cordelia’s back. They keep swaying as the song transitions. Another Christmas carol.

 

Misty doesn’t ever remember Christmas being so romantic, but now she will not remember it as being anything else.

 

Cordelia lifts her head to look at her, eyes filled with so much promise, and Misty is at her mercy. Fully, completely.

 

“You didn’t ruin my Christmas,” Cordelia tells her, bringing one hand up to cradle the back of her head, running her fingers through the curls. “You deserve to feel safe. And if that means you can’t stay here, then I won’t be selfish with you.”

 

It has taken a lot for Cordelia to reach this conclusion, Misty realizes. She knows her words from before cut right through Cordelia on a level that shouldn’t even exist. Because no singular person should have so much emotional power over another person that they are able to hurt them that extremely with a few well-placed words at the wrong time.

 

_I don’t want to leave_ , Misty thinks. _I never wanted to, but I figured I had to_.

 

And so, what if she doesn’t? What if the thought of being separated from Cordelia ( _again_ )is just out of the question now? That’s the territory they are quickly approaching, the way Cordelia holds her so gently and gazes at her with an expression that offers her all the healing she could ever need. Quickly approaching a point where they just might need each other, and that is a place in the sea of their relationship that they have never sunken so deeply into before.

 

“I think I’ve been looking for myself in all the wrong places,” she says, voice thin and fragile. “I’m so tired, Cordelia.”

 

“I know,” Cordelia whispers back soothingly, stroking a hand through her hair.

 

There is an electricity here, a warmth between them, as Misty leans her forehead against Cordelia’s. She doesn’t know how long this seed has been planted, but it seems finally ready. Ready to bloom. She seems ready to let it.

 

“I lied earlier, about not asking for anything else. I’m gonna ask for one more thing,” Misty tells her.

 

“Then ask me. Ask me, and don’t ever stop asking me. I’m here. I’m right here for you.”

 

And it’s a rush of a feeling, Cordelia’s words knocking into her ribcage and knotting up at the bottom of her heart, knowing that Cordelia would so readily do anything to help her. To save her from this hell within. And all she has to do is ask. Her head spins, and she is dizzy from the madness of it all.

 

“Will you sleep with me tonight?”

 

The request tumbles from her lips, and Cordelia nods her confirmation, their noses brushing as her head moves.

 

“If that’s what you need.”

 

_It is_ , she thinks desperately, _it is, and I’ll never not need it_.

 

 

 

 

 

Suddenly, she is back. She is back in hell, but it’s not hell. It’s not a biology classroom, not teachers and students and scalpels.

 

Cordelia stands before her, her hands bloodied and clutching at her side, covering a slice in her abdomen. Misty moves to catch her as she collapses onto the floor, as she coughs and sputters, and the _blood_. There is so, so much blood.

 

Misty tries to make it stop. She places shaky hands over Cordelia’s, gripping them tightly. And she begins to heal her. Her magic hovers between them, the tendrils reaching through Cordelia’s dress, all tacky and smeared thick with blood, through her skin, mending the wound inside out.

 

_I’m doing it. I’m doing it, I’m saving her, she’s okay_.

 

Then the flames manifest. Cordelia is screaming, no longer being healed but burned alive. Misty can’t breathe. She cries out, screams for help until she has no voice left, but Cordelia’s flesh welts and bubbles and melts with each passing moment, the fire that Misty’s magic has created consuming her. No one is coming for them. No one is going to save her. Misty has to sit here, tears blurring her vision, smoke choking her lungs, and watch Cordelia die at her hands. Because she was too weak to bring her to salvation, so she ruined her instead.

 

“Misty.”

 

Cordelia’s voice is still a warm, gentle thing, despite the ash flaking off her skin as she roasts. She says Misty’s name, over and over, like a summons.

 

Misty jolts, body jerking into an upright position as she takes greedy gasps of air. Her hands fly out, finding soft bedsheets, pillows, instead of fire, and finding Cordelia’s smooth, unmarred skin instead of soot and rot.

 

“It was a bad dream,” Cordelia whispers, lips at her ear, her arms enveloping Misty. “It was just a dream. You’re okay, you’re safe, it’s okay.”

 

Misty feels sick, suddenly, bile rising to the back of her throat as she is forced to accept that her subconscious is capable of weaving together such horrendously believable nightmares. She licks her dry lips and tastes the salt from her tears. So, that part had been real, then. The pain of it had been real, but nothing else, because Cordelia is alive and here, her body pressed to Misty’s, unwilling to let go until she believes she is okay.

 

Misty trembles, her hand reaching for Cordelia’s arm around her midsection. She presses her fingertips to the skin there, just above her elbow, and it gives under her touch, warm and soft and unharmed. And this is real. She leans into Cordelia. She rests her head on her shoulder, sniffles as she grasps for a semblance of composure.

 

“Sorry,” she says, voice coarse as sandpaper. “I woke you up.”

 

“Don’t,” Cordelia tells her, fingers twisting gingerly in Misty’s hair. “Don’t apologize. I was already awake.”

 

Misty glances over Cordelia’s shoulder at the analogue clock on the nightstand. Four thirty-eight. So that’ll be why it’s still so dark.

 

“You were awake? This whole time?” Misty asks, and when Cordelia nods, her heart sinks. “No. No, I shouldn’t have—you shouldn’t be here. I can’t just have you on standby in case my demons decide to show up, Cordelia, that’s not _right_. That’s not fair.”

 

“I want to be here,” Cordelia says kindly. “I already told you that.” She untangles herself from Misty and rests a hand on her cheek. “Lie back down. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

 

Misty’s shoulders slump with exhaustion, and she settles back against her pillow. She doesn’t shut her eyes, not now, not when she doesn’t know what she’ll see when she does. So, she gazes up at the plaster ceiling, her eyes following the path of the crown molding that crests the walls.

 

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she says after a while, when her breathing has slowed to a normal rhythm, when she has calmed down.

 

“Then what is it?” Cordelia asks her, rolling onto her side so she can watch Misty’s brain work around the question. Misty doesn’t answer right away, and Cordelia takes her hand, laces their fingers together. “Talk to me.”

 

Misty would love to. She’d love nothing more than to be able to put her thoughts into the right sentences and explain how scared she feels when she thinks of losing Cordelia. But the image of Cordelia scorched by flame, dying in front of her, dying _because_ of her, keeps flashing in her brain. She can’t make it through an explanation right now. If she starts telling Cordelia about her nightmare, she will break. Her strings will sever, and she will fall.

 

There’s something for this moment, Misty thinks. There is a phrase that fits perfectly here, and she’s going to use it. It doesn’t belong under lock and key anymore. It’s a feeling that deserves to exist.

 

“I love you,” she says.

 

And then it’s there. Just like that. A factual thing that can’t be disputed. Cordelia can do whatever she likes with it, but at least it’s there now. The only outside description that seems to match up with the inside in a way that leaves no room for question.

 

She holds her breath as Cordelia’s eyes glisten in the darkness. She watches her, feels Cordelia’s knuckles brush her cheekbone, then feels Cordelia’s mouth on hers in the next instant. It’s worth it, maybe, all the suffering and all the wrong turns along the way. To have this, to have Cordelia’s lips sliding over her own as she kisses her back.

 

It opens her up, loosens the reins that the darkness has so relentlessly owned. She starts to feel her heart again, and not just the pounding in her chest, but the power that pumps through it and fills her veins. She feels hopeful. She feels understood.

 

Her hands go to Cordelia’s neck, and she angles her head so that Cordelia is kissing her deeper. It is still slow, still maddening. She wants all of this, all at once. Doesn’t want to idle any longer because they are finally moving. They have finally shifted out of the agony of first gear, and she’s high on the adrenaline of acceleration now. High on the taste of Cordelia’s tongue in her mouth; it’s all she wants.

 

She inhales sharply, and Cordelia pulls away only by a few inches. Misty can feel Cordelia’s warm breath on her face. She doesn’t think she’s even breathing anymore, thinks she stopped the moment Cordelia’s lips collided with her own, at the first contact. But her chest still heaves. Her pulse still hammers, and her body still screams _moremoremore_.

 

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Cordelia says, her voice barely above the volume of a whisper.

 

Misty wants to say, _read my mind._ Wants to say, _see for yourself all the ways I need you right now_.

 

“I’m thinking,” Misty tells her, a smile forming on her features, “that you could stand to be a little more straightforward next time you ask someone on a date.”

 

Cordelia’s laughter escapes in one breath, and she drops her head to Misty’s neck.

 

“I love you,” Cordelia says, pressing her lips to the skin below Misty’s ear, and Misty hums pensively. “I do. I love you.”

 

She wants to beg Cordelia to prove it. Wants to _feel_ it. But Cordelia already knows this.

 

Cordelia drops lingering kisses along the column of Misty’s neck, grazes her throat with her teeth, then moves up and finds her lips, latching onto them. Misty’s mouth opens pleadingly, and Cordelia’s tongue dips gently, strokes the roof of her mouth and the back of her teeth, then Misty’s tongue. There is a heat blazing low in her stomach. Her breaths are harsh, and she is winded and dizzy and aching.

 

She grips at the front of Cordelia’s sweater—and god, her fucking sweaters, the ridiculous garments that Misty has imagined quite literally ripping off of her every single day for the entire month of December—and pulls her closer, pulls her on top of her so that Cordelia is hovering above.

 

She is holding back, Misty notices. Cordelia will sigh into her mouth and scrape teeth over her bottom lip, but she is holding back. When Misty lifts her hips up into Cordelia’s thigh, she feels Cordelia shudder and instinctively ground her own hips down, but softly. So softly, and Misty wants to burn with this feeling, wants to be ruined by her, and she needs to feel Cordelia’s skin everywhere on her as she comes alive. Needs more than careful, hesitant touches.

 

“Cordelia,” she whispers hungrily against her lips, and Cordelia pulls back enough to look her in the eyes, “I’m not made of glass. I promise I won’t break.”

 

Cordelia’s eyes darken, and Misty watches her bite her lip in apprehension. Misty’s breath gets stuck in her airway as Cordelia swallows visibly, and Misty wants to run her tongue over the hollow of her throat as it tenses with the motion.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Cordelia speaks, her tone one of admission.

 

Misty squirms, nearly whines “hurt me, _please_ ,” because the kind of hurt she is familiar with and the kind of hurt Cordelia is referring to are…not the same. They are different, and maybe this strand of pain, by Cordelia’s definition, could set her world back in orbit again. Drowning in desire instead of fear, with Cordelia’s fingers pulling at her hair, and Cordelia’s nails dragging along her skin, and Cordelia’s teeth sinking in, marking her body. This is the kind of hurt that she longs for; the saccharine pain of being felt and loved and wrecked.

 

Misty pulls Cordelia’s face back to hers, connecting their mouths in a kiss that is significantly bolder, charged with current. She feels Cordelia push at her dress until it is up around her torso, then feels nails sliding down her stomach, grating over the sensitive skin of her lower abdomen. She arches into the contact, and Cordelia tugs at her bottom lip with her teeth, finally unforgiving. Finally matching Misty’s fire.

 

Cordelia’s hand travels lower, with purpose, as she moves her mouth to Misty’s neck. She sucks, hard, bringing blood to the surface and leaving tiny, stippled specks in her wake. Cordelia repeats this action in all the blank spaces of her neck, mottling Misty’s flesh with red and purple bruises. Cordelia’s nails scratch against Misty’s inner thigh. She shivers and clenches at the proximity of Cordelia’s fingers, drops her own hands to Cordelia’s lower back, then to her ass, and adds pressure so that Cordelia’s hips press harder against Misty’s thigh. Angling for a rhythm. Something Misty can move against.

 

There is a familiar heat emanating from where Cordelia straddles her, grinds against her, and Misty suddenly needs to feel her. Needs to touch her. She doesn’t though, not right then, because Cordelia skips her fingertips across the fabric of Misty’s panties, and she releases a low grumble of a moan at the sensation that rushes through her. Cordelia hums into her shoulder, grazes the pad of her thumb over Misty’s clitoris in time with the rolling of her hips.

 

“Is this what you want?” Cordelia asks (purrs, really), and Misty can only nod and stutter out a “ _yes_ , yes, yes,” as she tugs Misty’s panties lower until she has the access she needs.

 

Cordelia takes Misty’s clit between her thumb and forefinger, lightly pinching it and running it in circles, and Misty groans desperately, hands still firm on Cordelia’s backside as their bodies move, crash against each other like waves. Cordelia bites down mercilessly on Misty’s shoulder when she pushes a single finger into her, and Misty’s eyes slam shut as a hoarse cry wrenches itself from her throat. Her body sings with pleasure, her muscles aching and pulling as Cordelia adds another, as she takes Cordelia’s fingers deeper.

 

(When she comes, she’s loud, and Cordelia roughly kisses her to smother the sound. When she comes, she finds clarity. Her chest rises and falls at a pace her lungs almost can’t keep up with, and she feels power winding through her veins and along her skin. Like Cordelia has fucked a piece of the darkness out of her. Probably a small piece, Misty thinks greedily. Probably they still have more work to do.)

 

 

 

 

 

At dawn, she carefully untangles herself from a sleeping Cordelia and rises from the bed with a bedsheet lazily draped over her. She tiptoes over to the foot of the bed, mindful of the creaking floorboards, where the pine tree is at gruesome rest. Misty settles in front of it, stretching her legs out in front of her, and breathes.

 

It’s difficult to look at it, to know that she extinguished whatever life had been left in the thing. It’s difficult to see it in this state when Misty imagines so much more for it in her head. This poor, helpless sapling could have been a healthy, towering Christmas tree. Could have brought so much joy.

 

She’s going to try. Against her better judgement, against everything that is telling her she can’t do it, she is going to try anyway. Because her own lifeforce has been replenished, her very soul beginning to stitch itself back together, slow as molasses, but healing nonetheless. With the newly welcome help of Cordelia’s resounding, unconditional love.

 

Misty scoots closer, pulling the bedsheet up around her shoulders more securely. She lets her eyelids flutter closed, lets her mind drift and sink. And she feels her magic curl around her fingers.

 

She reaches out for one of the weak, broken branches, and slides her hand along the base of it.

 

_I belong here. This is my home. Hell didn’t take me. Hell can’t have me_.

 

These words repeat themselves like a pattern in her mind, driving her magic outward. The scent of life, of forest and moss, touches the air. It’s not strong, but it’s there, and it grows with each passing second. It grows with each passing thought.

 

Cordelia’s hair, cascading in golden locks. Cordelia’s hands, always warm and always comforting. Cordelia’s smile, a soft, quiet thing. Everything about her elicits a reaction from Misty. It’s not a love that digs its claws in and demands, but a love that soars. It offers and accepts with equal grace. It’s not a push-pull. It’s not a give-take. It’s unity. It’s development. It’s willful and kind, sturdy and flexible, but never without.

 

She mirrors this love that she feels with her magic. She turns it into something palpable. She arranges the pieces and lets them fall perfectly in the roots of the tree.

 

And Misty feels the spring of life reach for her hand. The sapling breathes in time with her now, grasping and clinging. As she exhales, it does, too, and then she feels the poke of thin, sticky needles at her palm.

 

Her eyes open.

 

It’s not the size of a Christmas tree, but it is vibrant at its ordinary three-foot height. She has restored it. It no longer weeps with decay. It no longer swims in dust and char. Misty lets out a squeal of excitement, laughs as tears fill her eyes, because _she did it_. She is lightheaded, and her bones and muscles complain at the exertion, but she did it. She fixed it. She healed it. The first living thing she has successfully mended since she’s been back.

 

Cordelia startles awake at Misty’s sound, and swipes her arm out along the empty space beside her in the bed. Cordelia panics for half a second until she sees Misty below her, crouched at the edge of the bed.

 

“Are you okay?” Cordelia asks, blinking the sleep from her eyes, dragging a hand down her face. “What are you doing? Why are you crying?”

 

“I did it,” Misty beams, jumping up off the floor and bounding back into bed. “I did it, I brought it back, it’s beautiful. It needs a little more love, but we’re gonna have such a perfect Christmas tree, Cordelia.”

 

Cordelia looks, sees the sapling with all its green-needled branches splayed out, as if it is as thrilled to be alive as Misty is to have brought it back. Then she grins at Misty, her eyes softening in the still-dim morning sunrise. Misty is full to the brim with happiness, with pride, and she dips her head to soundly crush her lips to Cordelia’s. Her cheeks are wet with tears, but Cordelia just holds her face and kisses her back. She kisses her until she can’t breathe, until she has to pull away.

 

“Thank you,” Misty says breathlessly, pushing strands of Cordelia’s hair behind her ear. “For being patient with me. For tolerating me and for trusting me.”

 

Cordelia bites her lip and smiles modestly.

 

“Misty, I didn’t do anything.” Cordelia runs her hand along the length of Misty’s arm, then fits her fingers between Misty’s. “This is your victory.” Cordelia inches closer, tugs Misty down by the hand until she is resting beside her and eyes her suggestively. “But what I can do is help you celebrate it.”

 

Misty’s cheeks flush as she grins, can hardly even properly kiss Cordelia from the smile that stretches her face, but she leans in anyway.

 

Misty doesn’t ever remember Christmas being so romantic, but from now on when she thinks of it, she will remember this.

**Author's Note:**

> the next thing i write for them will b conventionally happy i promise, they just...really like to cry for some reason :~) im on twitter and tumblr @bourbonstdyke for both so like. come scream abt them w me idk.


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